Posts by Neil Morrison
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I think Pansy Wong and her husband got involvde with some one thye shouldn't have. I'm not sure that she intended to leverage her ministerial position. Unlike Worth who very clearly did.
But she showed enough poor judgement to be out of cabinet.
This just a part of Labour's stratgey at the moment, Hodgson is now muttering darkly about ministerial housing again. It is an opposition strategy to throw mud and see if any sticks but if it means MPs travelling less and ministers continually having to justify their accomodation I don't think it's a great outcome.
-
One would hope The Minister of Ethnic Affairs may have been astute enough...
one would, but she does appear to have not been. It's poor judgement but not quite what Labour are suggesting.
Hodgson needs to come up with something more than a half-translated piece from a local chinese govt wedsite written by some one we don't know with an agenda we don't know based on information we don't know from someone we don't know with an agenda we don't know and all based on leads given to Hodgson by people we don't know but whose agenda when can guess.
-
Yang is a con-artist, the Wongs might not have known what they were walking into on those trips to China and the local govt media spin might have been more to do with Yang than reality.
-
I think Hodgson has been fed business info from some disgruntled people and got lucky with the travel and my guess is that the Wongs got taken for a ride.
-
Although Wong's travel shenanigans were revealed by the media, not by Hodgson. If he had know about that I doubt he would have passed up the opportunity to ask some sticky questions in the house. He got a bit lucky.
Labour Party MP Pete Hodgson says a Chinese local government website shows Mrs Wong, identified as a minister, promoting her husband's investment in a hovercraft company.
I'd like to see what exactly was on the site and just who thought Wong was promoting. Labour's interpretation might be right but it might also be wrong.
-
Plenty of above average wage increases since then knocks the first claim on the head
But if the 1972 trade-off had not been made then MPs would be earning more now, every increase since then would have gone on top of what ever they would have recieved in 1972 instead of the travel allowances.
MPs since 1972 have signed up to specific conditions of employment, having the state sweep that away is not good employment practice it seems to me.
-
I support sitting and former MPs having this sort of travel benefit as I think that on the whole this benefits the country. Some MPs might just have a holiday or do a bit of business but it's a small price to pay and setting up some vetting process for worthiness would inevitably be cumbersome and arbitrary.
But this system is a sitting duck for partisan scandal mongering so it's probably not going to last. What politician is going to want to be seen to be in favour of "perks" for politicians.
-
I'd go so far as outrageously serious if it all wasn't so damn, well, serious.
-
we've seen some local attempts to whip up populist anger about bailouts of financial instutions. From people who pretend to know better.
-
Hmmm.
I wonder who gave then that piece of revisionist BS, I doubt they came up with it on their own.
But when even in NZ intelligent people are still saying "all the actors wanted to do was talk to PJ and wasn't he sooo unreasonable not to" it's not surpising SAG gets things wrong.
International solidarity based on ignorance played a part in this and it appears to be still playing a part.
It really is quite dispiriting to see what PJ did for actors on The Hobbit (get residuals) competely ignored until the actors union wants to take credit for it. Collective action has lead to collective madness.